FAITH-BASED ADOPTIVE/FOSTER SERVICES

FAITH-BASED ADOPTIVE/FOSTER SERVICES:
FAITH COMMUNITIES’ ROLES IN CHILD WELFARE

  

Prepared for the Annie E. Casey Foundation
by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture,
University of Southern California

John B. Orr, Senior Research Associate
Grace Roberts Dyrness, Director of Community Research and Development
Peter W. Spoto, Researcher, USC School of Religion

“The nation’s Abrahamic faith communities—Christianity, Judaism, Islam—share a prophetic

tradition that promotes social justice advocacy, community organizing, and, also, the

delivery of human services for isolated, vulnerable, and politically weak populations.

Some expressions of this prophetic tradition, ironically, appear to be almost conservative—

i.e., when they supplement and extend a social welfare system that is already in place and

that is admittedly flawed. Their services often aim to make this system “work better”—in

supplementing the services that can be offered by public agencies; in humanizing the

interaction between participants and public agencies; in recruiting participants; and in

providing day-to-day support services for these participants.

Just as often—hopefully—faith-based spokespersons for the nation’s prophetic tradition

point out that even well-intended publicly-sponsored welfare services produce injustice.

They formulate and advocate needed changes in the laws and administrative policies that

guide public social programs. They pressure public agency officials to revise their missions

and/or to reshape their service strategies. They experiment with alternative service delivery

models.

In relation to public agencies that serve foster/adoptive children and families, faith

communities typically perform the following “value-added” roles.

· They recruit foster/adoptive parent candidates. In Los Angeles, for example,

ChildShare, a faith-based foster/adoptive parenting organization, actively recruits

foster/adoptive parents in congregations, often by issuing “biblically-based

invitations” during worship services. It uses staff members and volunteers to recruit

in Latino, African-American, and Asian-American congregations. Recently its reach

has extended to hearing-impaired congregations. It attempts to locate

foster/adoptive parents who adhere to a child’s own faith tradition. It tries to locate

foster/adoptive parents in a child’s own community.

Nationally, faith communities have established networks of organizations that recruit

foster/adoptive parents and then connect these recruits with public agencies to

assure that legal requirements are met. Examples: Catholic Adoptive Services,

Presbyterian Children’s Homes, Christian Child and Family Services Association

(Churches of Christ), the Salvation Army, Jewish Family Services, Lydia Home

Association (Evangelical Free Church of America), and an extensive system of

Southern Baptist state-based foster/adoptive organizations.

· They provide support services for foster/adoptive families in their own and other

congregations. Encouraged by ChildShare, FosterHope, Catholic Family Services,

Jewish Family Services and other similar faith-based organizations, congregations

offer support groups for foster/adoptive parents, respite child care services, food and

clothing, transportation, and sometimes even financial assistance. Fellow 2

congregation members send cards and flowers to celebrate the contributions of

foster/adoptive parents. They offer prayer support.

· They offer mentoring relationships for families, youth, and children who are at-risk.

Faith communities have a long history of mentoring services through organizations

such as Catholic Big Brothers/Big Sisters and Jewish Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Now

with the cooperation of these organizations, they are expanding mentoring

relationships to the children of prisoners and to children who are in danger of being

removed into the foster care system.

· They provide specialized family support service agencies for at-risk families and

children. Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic communities have constructed an

extensive network of shelters, multi-service agencies, specialized human service

agencies, clinics, and community centers that collaborate with public agencies.

While many of these are subsidized by public grants, they depend heavily on

monetary gifts, in-kind contributions, and volunteer hours from members of faith

communities. These organizations significantly expand the pool of crisis intervention

services that are available in urban low-income neighborhoods. They are often

perceived by residents as “neighborhood-based”—a perception, according to many

national and local studies, that reduces the fears of residents who are often wary of

public institutions.

· They participate in regional/city/neighborhood coalitions that try to assure a

continuum of care for at-risk families and children. Faith-service organizations

cooperate with other private sector welfare agencies, public welfare agencies,

universities, and congregations in informal and incorporated coalitions that expand

and reinforce each other’s contributions. For example, Project Hope in Los Angeles

has created a coalition that tries to assure that at-risk families have access to

needed family support services. The San Fernando Interfaith Council cooperates

with a large number of public and private agencies in their services for at-risk

families. Now that Council is making plans to participate contractually in a publiclyoperated

mall of family services that will be built in Los Angeles’ San Fernando

Valley.

· They put pressure on public agencies and legislative bodies to humanize

foster/adoptive strategies that are experienced as unjust. In California, for example,

the faith-based Faith Communities for Families and Children, which is associated

with the California Youth Law Center, actively opposes current public policy that

provides financial incentives for at-risk children to be placed in the foster care. Public

policy, they argue, is shaped by the fact that child welfare systems rely heavily on

federal funds that are directed toward children who are removed from their unstable

homes. The organization dramatizes abuses in Los Angeles County’s foster care

system, and calls for broad-scale reform—at least for the formulation of a

demonstration project, which, over a five year period of time, would test family

preservation theory.”

To read the full research study visit: http://www.fostercaremonth.org/GetInvolved/Toolkit/Support/Documents/Faith-based_Report.pdf